It is well established that the right to education is one of the most basic rights that children have. Imagine a case in which children are taught misinformation, history is rewritten, and schoolchildren are subtly (and often not so subtly) taught to hate their neighbors. Education arguably is the greatest weapon used by Azerbaijan over the last 30 years. In addition to deploying modern weapons of war it receives from Turkey and Israel, Azerbaijan has succeeded in creating a generation that hates Armenians through the use and weaponization of education.
Examples from Azerbaijani textbooks demonstrate the seriousness of this situation. In these textbooks, Armenians are referred to derogatorily, history is rewritten and Azerbaijani children are taught that Armenians are enemies who committed genocide against them and stole their land. This type of propaganda is dangerous, spreading fake narratives and hatred among young students. It may be one of the great issues facing the Armenian nation, hindering it from the possibility of safety and peace as its sovereignty continues to be attacked.
The extracts below were taken from the Azerbaijan Ministry of Science and Education website and translated from Azerbaijani to English using Google Translate. While there may be minor translation errors, the overall meaning of the extracts is clear.
“Patriotism” in Azerbaijani textbooks
Starting in the second grade, Azerbaijani children are taught the importance of being “patriots.” They are taught that their army is one of the strongest in the world, which led to their victory in the 44-day war in Artsakh and the protection of their territorial integrity. From textbooks on life science to English to Azerbaijani language at every grade level, patriotism and the Azerbaijani soldier are revered. See the extract below from a second grade “Life Knowledge” textbook.
Derogatory references to Armenians
Textbooks often include stories about Armenians expelling or driving Azerbaijanis out of their lands. The dozens of stories describing Armenian aggression in Azerbaijani textbooks demonstrate a pattern. Armenians are referred to as the “enemy,” as seen in the third grade textbook below.
Some textbooks use even more embellished language to describe Armenians. An extract from a fifth grade history textbook section titled “March Genocide” uses phrases including, “These scoundrels want to kill us…” and “The rabid Armenians continued the massacre…” In the same section, Armenians are also described as “depraved.” The term “Dashnak,” in reference to the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, is also used derogatorily in the context of “Dashnak gangs.” Textbooks often refer to Armenians as “liars” and “bandits.” This language impacts young Azerbaijani students, shaping their only impression of Armenians.
In this extract from a fifth grade Azerbaijani history textbook, Armenians are described as “executioners” and “fascists.” The first sentence below states, “…‘Armenianism,’ which stands above all brutality and cruelty. It is ‘Armenianism’ that kills even an unborn baby.” This is taught to 10-year-old Azerbaijani students. In the context of Armenians being “brutal” and “cruel,” Khojaly is the greatest piece of propaganda.
Creating anti-Armenian sentiment through emotion
Not only are Armenians referred to derogatorily, but there is also a large emphasis on creating anti-Armenian sentiment through emotion. For example, in a fourth grade Azerbaijani language textbook, students are shown photographs of dead Azerbaijani soldiers hanging in order to motivate them to be willing to die for their country. Imagine the impact on an eight- or nine-year-old student, for whom these images are their only association with Armenians. It is meant to instill hatred against Armenians in young students.
More common and covert are the sad, emotional stories of displacement. These stories are also introduced in order to instill hatred against Armenians in young students. See the extract below from a fifth grade Azerbaijani language textbook.
Rewriting history
The final tactic to instill anti-Armenian sentiment among students is rewriting history. This history is carefully rewritten to convince young Azerbaijani students that Armenians perpetrated genocide and stole lands from their people. Another common theme is that Armenians are deceitful traitors who give information to the Russians. See the extracts below from a fifth grade history book.
This excerpt claims that the goal of the tsarists in “capturing” or “occupying” Yerevan was to create a barrier to separate Azerbaijani and Ottoman Turks. This historical fabrication is taught in order to legitimize the “Western Azerbaijan” ideology in the minds of young Azerbaijani students.
Legitimizing “Western Azerbaijan”
Textbooks introduce the “Western Azerbaijan” ideology, creating a false narrative that historically Armenian land, including the ancient city Yerevan, is occupied. They spread a narrative that Armenians changed “Turkish-Armenian” names such as “Iravan” to “Yerevan.” This is the fabricated history Azerbaijani students are taught, without access to other sources. This may be Azerbaijan’s most dangerous weapon in creating a generation of youth with strong anti-Armenian sentiment. See the eighth grade textbook below for an example.
This extract tries to legitimize “Western Azerbaijan” propaganda by alleging that Armenian historians support this ideology.
The “Western Azerbaijan” ideology starts early. In the extract below from a third grade Azerbaijani language textbook, students are taught that Armenians occupied Lake Sevan 100 years ago. Perhaps the author of the textbook conveniently forgot about the ninth century Armenian medieval monetary Sevanavank?
Armenians are described as making “cunning plans” and conquering the area with the help of Russia. The textbook adds an emotional component regarding the displaced Azerbaijanis who desire to return to their native ancestral lands. This emotional appeal fuels the animosity toward Armenians. The textbook also draws special attention to terms “to displace” and “to occupy,” instilling the concept that Azerbaijanis were displaced from “occupied” Lake Sevan.
Once again the textbook claims that Armenians changed the names of Azerbaijani locations, in this example from “Gochya” to “Sevan.” This is also intended to instill anti-Armenian sentiment by teaching Azerbaijani students that Armenians are fabricating history.
Portraying Armenians as genocide perpetrators
In addition to depicting Armenians as people who stole Azerbaijani lands and changed Azerbaijani names, Azerbaijani textbooks claim that Armenians committed genocide against them. Spreading such false narratives against a people who themselves faced a genocide while using rhetoric such as “rabid Armenians” and “depraved Armenians” in a fifth grade textbook is unacceptable and diminishes any legitimacy that the Azerbaijani Ministry of Science and Education could claim to have. See the following extract from a fifth grade textbook.
See the extracts below from a ninth grade history textbook below detailing Armenian “atrocities.”
The section above asks students to ponder the “measures taken by the Ottoman state to resolve the Armenian issue.” Descendants of the Armenian Genocide could answer that question differently than posed here. The excerpt refers to Armenians as an “issue” several times, insinuating that Armenians continue to be an “issue” for Azerbaijan.
Depiction of the 44-day War
The ninth grade textbook called “Victory History” is all about the 44-day war in Artsakh. The textbook is full of war tactics, strategies and propaganda. The textbook discusses the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, as well as the war in 2016, claiming that the Armenians launched the attack. See the textbook cover below.
It is also interesting to see the political analysis of the Velvet Revolution that brought PM Nikol Pashinyan to power in Armenia as explained in the extracts below.
This tenth grade textbook is called “Pre-Challenge Preparation.” This 38-chapter book teaches military preparation and technique.
This eleventh-grade history book includes falsified history, derogatory depictions of Armenians, and glorification of the 44-day war.
The extract below discusses the Lachin Corridor, the sole road connecting Artsakh and Armenia that Azerbaijan blocked for 10 months before launching an attack that forcibly displaced the entire Armenian population of the region. Unsurprisingly, the blockade, ethnic cleansing and genocide against Armenians in the region are conveniently left out.
Under Article 29 of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child:
- States Parties agree that the education of the child shall be directed to:
(b) The development of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and for the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations;
(d) The preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society, in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes, and friendship among all peoples, ethnic, national and religious groups and persons of indigenous origin.
The misinformation and hate taught in Azerbaijani textbooks are certainly a violation of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. In addition to the danger these textbooks create by instilling hatred within students, they also violate those students’ rights, as they deserve an education without false history and propaganda.
The extracts shared are only a few examples of the widespread anti-Armenian sentiment and fabricated history taught to Azerbaijani students. One can only imagine what lessons the students are taught outside of these textbooks in the classroom. These textbooks are one of Azerbaijan’s most dangerous weapons — in teaching students to hate Armenians, they ensure that they have future soldiers ready to fight a war and a society where young people do not imagine or even want peace with Armenians. The Azerbaijani Ministry of Science and Education needs to be held to a standard of teaching accurate history and removing hateful rhetoric from their textbooks and classrooms.
Special thanks to Lindsey Snell and Larisa Hovannisian for their contributions.
Lori Yeni-Komshian, Esq.
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My poetry book “Why Hate=Hateness=Hatism=Why!?!
Hate is the cause of all pandemic genocides in the world…
My Poem
Teach Your Child Love
Yes,
Nothing Else
Teach yours’ love, Yes, nothing else.
Talent will grow if love enters the race.
Teach your child LOVE, watch flowering life
In gardens, in deserts, in chilly spaces …
Teach your child love, and nothing else.
Do not teach hate for others’ faiths—
Teach your child love that grows and cares.
Teach, cuddle your child—endless embrace.
Thee (he/she) will learn to give to others in joyful ways,
For those who didn’t taste love, to grow, grace
Teach a real love, love that has no fence.
Restricted love cannot relieve pains!
Teach sense to love and nothing else.
Can you change minds locked in skulls?
If you teach love, that says and changes.
Try to tutor love, and gain fruitful praise.
Teach your child love, Yes nothing else.
Hate will crush, inventing sense from the base.
Give yours, beloveds the utmost love;
Even those who’ve had no luck will receive and address
See how life will smile on their faces
And on everyone, hard-livers of this millennial chase….
From Sylva,
Mother of Love
October 27, 2007
Reading through all these Azerbaijani lies, fabrications, institutional brainwashing and hatred against the Armenians and various other manufactured claims nothing surprised me at all. Putting aside the fact that these people are experts in anti-Armenian propaganda, and having read an article some years ago after the 1994 Armenian victory and liberation movement on one of their state-sponsored racist websites suggesting the creation of an Azerbaijani Department of Misinformation against Armenia and the Armenians, I strongly believe and I am fully convinced these are all by design and premeditation for the Aliyev MAFIA clan to remain in power. These are methods to shift the focus from internal turmoil and population discontent of the Aliyev dictatorial regime, in charge since the 1960s first by the KGB agent father Heydar and now by Ilham the chicken-hawk since the father’s death in 2003, onto a familiar Armenian enemy. This criminal Aliyev clan needs an enemy to continue to remain in power. The fact that information is censored by the state and fed to a population that is mostly illiterate politically and without any real access to alternate news source, makes these methods of brainwashing quite desirable and effective for their criminal leaders.
We know all about their tricks but the question is what are we doing about it? I think not much and that has to change because all this misinformation is also fed to unsuspecting non-Azerbaijani populations around the world by way of lectures and book publishing. When lies are told over and over again and there is no reaction to expose these lies, most likely because the Armenian government is not interested or does not have an official budget set aside to combat these lies and also because we naively think the entire World knows or is supposed to know about our ancient people and history, then these lies over time take a life of their own when they should have been confronted and eradicated as soon as they were published by the enemy false historians and racist provocateurs. Every anti-Armenian claim must be countered with facts to discredit and shame the enemy. I think this is one effort the wealthy Diaspora can invest in since not much is done by the Armenian government.
P.S. That Azerbaijani journalist Mustafayev did not die but was killed by Azerbaijani fire deliberately because he had captured on camera the actual facts of the event in question and killing him was one way to avoid the exposure of the truth. Even their own first post-Soviet president Ayaz Mutalibov put the blame on the pro-Turkish, pan-Turkic and Islamo-fascist Azerbaijani criminal Popular Front as a means to discredit and depose him from power and put the blame on the Armenians.
I also remember several years ago when an Iranian reporter exposed another Azerbaijani lie when during one of their so-called and fabricated “khojaly” commemoration events in their Iranian embassy in Tehran, when they had put up the famous picture from the Armenian Genocide where an Armenian mother is leaning over her dying child in the Syrian desert and presented it as part of this fabricated event. I mean how stupid and vile do you have to be to steal and to show an Armenian Genocide picture taken in the scorching Syrian desert sun as Azerbaijani when this fake event took place in the freezing winter month of February in a mountainous region of the South Caucasus! The banner they used to use for their rallies for this event was also taken from a location in Kosovo during the 1990s Balkan war. I saw it on the YouTube channel. An Armenian had found a video of this event in Kosovo that had matched their fake banner!
Propoganda and indoctrination, although the Armenians were victims of self belief and hubris 1994 – 2020
Azerbaijani propaganda about Armenia, Armenians and Artsakh is divided into two versions: the hate-filled Armenophobic version indoctrinated from kindergarten onwards and constantly bombarded in the Azerbaijani media, and the watered-down diplomatic version without the Armenophobic language for the foreign audience. Azerbaijan has deviously employed the latter tactic to the international community with successful results, as part of its “Caviar Diplomacy”.
Even after Azerbaijan has attained its revanchist objective of taking Artsakh and ethnically cleansing all Armenians, it still maintains its xenophobic policy of needing Armenians as the “eternal enemy”, the “national security threat” and the scapegoat to divert the Azerbaijani populace from its problems. As long as Azerbaijan keeps its hostile posture, continues to claim and occupy territory of the Republic of Armenia, keeps indoctrinating its population with Armenophobic propaganda, and could violate the future “peace treaty” which will be in favor of Azerbaijan, nothing will be safe for Armenia.
So what is in Armenian school books? Tall tales. Works both ways.
Why don’t you write an exhaustively documented article about what is in Armenian school books and explain it to us, Murat?
Armenian text books tell heroic and true story of how a Christian people emerged victorious from the barbarism and savagery of your people.
Go on, Turk, tell us all that your people didn’t commit genocide against the Armenians.
The Turkish narrative and propaganda in Turkish history books, programs and to the international audience is that Turks have never committed a genocide against Armenians nor against the other ethnic groups in the Ottoman Empire. What is propagated in Turkish history books is that Armenians and the other Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire rebelled and committed genocide against the Turks during the World War One. And that the Turks were fighting for their survival and defeated them. Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians and Arabs are portayed in Turkey as traitors who stabbed the Ottoman Empire in the back and were pushed back and defeated. The Turks portray themselves as the underdog and the victim, when this was certainly not the case.
Acknowledging the Armenian Genocide in Turkey is illegal, and leads to prosecution by the state and to prison sentences. This genocide denial is prosecuted as “incitement of hatred against Turkishness (Turkish state and people)”, in the Turkish Criminal Code. Media who use the words “Ermeni Soykırımı” (Armenian Genocide in Turkish) are shut down by Turkish state and their assets confiscated, and on top of that, prosecution and prison sentences for the owners and journalists who used those “taboo” words. It really is dangerous to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide or even to use those words in Turkey.
The fact that the Turkish government has to create all these ad-hoc laws to shut people up on the Armenian Genocide is a manifestation of their crime. If they were not guilty of this crime one would think they would have taken the Armenians to international court for defamation of character. But they never do because if they did their action would be self-incriminating. In fact, it was the creation of the Turkish 301 Criminal Code, A.K.A. “Insulting Turkishness”, that led to the murder of Hrant Dink the editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian Agos newspaper. The creation of this law was no different from giving Turkish criminals the green light to commit this murder. I have no doubt Turkish president and terrorist-in-chief Erdogan was behind it.
They also claim Armenians wanted to create a homeland for themselves on Turkish territory when they were involved in fighting in many fronts. Imagine that! Armenians wanted to create a homeland for the Armenians where they had already lived for thousands of years and had established their ancient kingdoms long before Turkish terrorists had set foot in the region from their homeland in Central Asia and now the Turkish hyenas considered occupied Armenian homeland as theirs!
If you study their blood-thirsty history you realize that their corrupt and criminal empire which had lasted for five centuries had begun to crumble beginning in 1800s when they were thrown out of the territories they occupied, in the Balkans in particular, as a result of many European Wars of Liberation and by early 1900s they were left with what is Turkey today. That’s when they began the homogenization of lands still under their control which meant the Turkification and Islamisation of what was left of their empire. They targeted and paid special attention to the Armenians because the Armenians were neither Turkish nor Muslims and with deep roots and connection to the lands where they lived. The Kurds were Muslims but not Turkish so they as their so-called “Muslim brothers” were tricked into joining them in the removal and annihilation of the Armenians and other non-Muslim populations. Once they were done getting rid of Armenians and other non-Muslims, they turned their attention on the Kurds. That is when they began calling the Kurds as “Mountain Turks” as a means to assimilate them into the Turkish society by denying them their language and culture. Furthermore, before all this happened, the Turks mobilized by their German masters had voluntarily entered WWI in 1914 with high hopes of recovering their lost occupied territories. Their first order of business was to attack Russia with 90,000 Turkish troops led by their minister of war, one of the three masterminds of the Armenian Genocide, from the rears through Caucasus to incite Islamic Jihad among the sizable Turkic population living in Russian empire. They failed miserably in the infamous Russian winter many of them killed in the battle and the rest freezing to death. This attack on Russia came to be known as the battle of Sarikamish. To save face, the war minister blamed his failure on the Armenians which was premeditated and a reason to begin the deportation and mass murder of the indigenous Armenians from their homelands.
Last but not least, Turkish prime minister Erdogan at the time wanting to become president and being unsuccessful to gain the votes of the millions of the Kurds and Allevis, started a peace process with the Kurds and exposed the staged-coup and subsequent massacre of tens of thousands of Allevis in 1937-1938 in the Turkish province of Dersim which was committed by the republican party, the party of Ataturk, which they had denied all along, discrediting their presidential candidate. That is how Erdogan gained their votes to become president. Soon after to regain the alliance of the Turkish fascist party of MHP, whose members belong to the racist grey wolves criminal gangs, Erdogan rekindled that alliance by scrapping the Kurdish peace process and began attacking their towns and villages. That is the TRUE Turkish character for you. For them the end result always justifies the means regardless of all the deaths and destruction that it causes!
As long as world maps confirm the existence of the Armenian Highlands and accurately depict Azerbaijan and Eastern Turkey, the ruling dictators, who cling to their admiration for Mongol influences, continue to seek validation from their brainwashed puppies.
The above history in the comments section is true. It is also long and complicated for a non Armenian audience, and this is the audience we need to win over.The best way to confront a Turk or Azeri when they begin their litany of lies in an audience composed of many non Armenians is ask one simple question, “Was there an Armenian Genocide yes or no?” They will never admit to it and immediately begin to lose credibility in the eyes of the non Armenian audience. And the follow up statement (if you are in the US) is to state that, “The Armenian Genocide is acknowledged by both houses of congress and by the US president. All efforts to deny The Armenian Genocide are supposed to be resisted as noted in the US Senate and House resolutions.” By this simple approach one can expose the Turks and Azeris for the murderous and lying, theives that they are. And that is a major reason why the Armenian Government should strongly resist any coercive efforts by the Turks and Azeris to try and water down the truth.